little harm, but not much of a foul

Set my alarm. Forgot a snooze. Woke up at 11:04. Let out some swears. Took a speed shower. Got to class at 11:25. Amazingly I didn't miss that much. Mostly complaints and issues about AfterEffects and an explanation about what the rest of the day will be. Whoo! So we talked about problem shooting, the next assignment was introduced (oh joy, two more freaking weeks of AfterEffects). We are doing lip syncing next. So one week is spent getting all the files synced, and another week is spent modifying it. We all have a part of Somewhere Over the Rainbow (thankfully Iz's version) and have to sync it to pictures of Tippi making the sounds with her mouth. Yeah. I'm not enthused. I want to draw!

We didn't critique, just reviewed the projects.

I had a burrito for lunch. Yum.

Because I missed the start, it was quite a surprise to come back to class and find that this guy, Ben, was a special guest. Ben works for Laika. Laika did Coraline. He was a sculptor for Coraline. Like, he did the tree, he also brought in an actual real doll used in the animation of the movie! He said it was worth ten thousand dollars. And he passed it around! For us to touch! He also had a box of the swappable face parts. Coraline wasn't sculpted, she was instead printed out in three dimensions. Yes, printed. Not sculpted. And had between ten and eleven thousand separate face parts. And that her mittens were hand knit with tiny little knitting needles and the cost of one of her knitted sweaters (tiny tiny thing) was about three thousand dollars. That costs more than a big person sweater! He also worked on the animation clean up for Beauty and the Beast and Mulan. He brought in one of his Beauty and the Beast sketches even. He gave a great talk about lip syncing and had a great energy all around. When the doll was being passed around, we all got really close to it. Just looked at the tiny little details. So much effort went into that movie. Five years it took to animate! And you want to know what else is awesome? Ben from Laika is a PNCA graduate. Class of 87.

But yeah, it was a most awesome talk. And when he pulled the doll out of the box, we all sort of gasped.

Then he left and we took a break. Back in class we got some more explanation of our assignment and we broke up into groups. One group shot Tippi. And the other two took images that could be used in the animation as well. My group had some props. We played with a ukulele, and fabric, and sunglasses. It was fun but I don't know how usable some of our stuff is.

Kelly gave a little demo of the program Logic. Then I went and colored my stuff and got it emailed off just in time for class. We looked at our pieces. There are some really good pieces. Then it was work time. I wasn't...uhh...productive. But I did put my name into the sheet for thesis. My blurb right now is "friendship & drawing; both are free" or something like that. Vague, but lighthearted. It gets across the points of theme and ideals. I don't need something overblown and concept heavy. People will come because they know me. And I'll be giving away a poster most likely.

After class, Beth, Dom, Karen and I made a trip to Yur's for after class beer and chat. Got some good conversation about thesis and focusing our intentions and projects and where we are from and our weird OCD habits, however mild they are. It was nice. I like routine. Anyway, went home. Got a care package with candy in it! Hurray!

Watched an episode of Mad Men with Kristen.

Need to clean apartment, start writing out thesis stuff, and blah blah blah. Tired. Not going to bother thinking stuff out right now.